Was Lt. Boma going to be a rucurring character?

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

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No way they would have written him so antagonistic to Spock if he was planned to come back.

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Don Marshall (Boma) was working fairly regularly in guest shots in those days, and had also guested on Roddenberry's The Lieutenant. A few years later he got a steady job as Dan Erickson in Land of the Giants.

TOS had several guests I immediately recognized during its first run, including Paul Carr (Kelso), and Paul Comi (Stiles). Glenn Corbett (Zefram Cochran) had previously been a regular on Route 66.

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen...
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Click to expand...

What you need to keep in mind is that in 1960s TV, it was commonplace for stories in an episodic TV series to be built around a featured guest character of the week. At the time, the classiest dramas were anthologies, so even shows with continuing characters often aspired to an anthology style, a format that was all about getting the main characters involved with a different featured guest character or characters and telling a story that was largely about the guests.

TOS's first season had a lot of episodes that revolved around prominent guest characters who only appeared once, just like much of '60s TV did. Often these were outsiders or visitors to the ship, like Harry Mudd and Eve McHuron, Charlie Evans, Roger Korby, Miri, the Romulan Commander, or Lenore Karidian; but sometimes they were crewmembers like Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner, Dave Bailey, Kevin Riley, and Boma. (Remember that Riley's character in "The Conscience of the King" was written as a separate character, Robert Leighton, and then renamed Riley when Bruce Hyde was cast.)

So Boma's prominent role had nothing to do with him being set up as a recurring character, because that's not how TV writers thought in the '60s and '70s. Back then, it was routine for one-time guest characters to be the centers of attention in TV episodes.

In the James Blish adaptaion of "Catspaw" in volume 8, the character in command of the Enterprise is given as "Farrell", a bridge officer who was played by Jim Godwin in several early first season episodes, indicating that Farrell was the officer slated to originally be in "Catspaw".

I was a huge fan of Mr. Boma. he was portrayed as a confident and competent officer who had an antogantistic side and not afraid to stand up to a superior officer. He would have made a great regular.

Just on the subject of Mr. Boma I was terribly disapointed a few years ago when visiting the Boma restaurant at Animal Kingdom Loge in Walt Disney World. None of the employees there had ever heard of him !

I was a huge fan of Mr. Boma. he was portrayed as a confident and competent officer who had an antogantistic side and not afraid to stand up to a superior officer. He would have made a great regular.

Just on the subject of Mr. Boma I was terribly disapointed a few years ago when visiting the Boma restaurant at Animal Kingdom Loge in Walt Disney World. None of the employees there had ever heard of him !

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A boma is an enclosure in a few African languages, like a stockade or a walled village.
(-which I only know from reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels.)

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen...
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Click to expand...

What you need to keep in mind is that in 1960s TV, it was commonplace for stories in an episodic TV series to be built around a featured guest character of the week. At the time, the classiest dramas were anthologies, so even shows with continuing characters often aspired to an anthology style, a format that was all about getting the main characters involved with a different featured guest character or characters and telling a story that was largely about the guests.

TOS's first season had a lot of episodes that revolved around prominent guest characters who only appeared once, just like much of '60s TV did. Often these were outsiders or visitors to the ship, like Harry Mudd and Eve McHuron, Charlie Evans, Roger Korby, Miri, the Romulan Commander, or Lenore Karidian; but sometimes they were crewmembers like Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner, Dave Bailey, Kevin Riley, and Boma. (Remember that Riley's character in "The Conscience of the King" was written as a separate character, Robert Leighton, and then renamed Riley when Bruce Hyde was cast.)

So Boma's prominent role had nothing to do with him being set up as a recurring character, because that's not how TV writers thought in the '60s and '70s. Back then, it was routine for one-time guest characters to be the centers of attention in TV episodes.

Click to expand...

The original STAR TREK pitch makes direct mention of this anthology-like style, where stories could be found in the crew who reside within the bowels of the ship:

As with GUNSMOKE"s Dodge City, KILDARE's Blair General Hospital, we may never get rond to exploring every cabin, department and cranny of our cruiser. The point being — it is a whole community in which we can anytime take our camera down a passageway and find a guest star or secondary character (scientist, specialist, ordinary airman, passenger or stowaway) who can propel us into a story.

Lt. Boma from The Galileo Seven was a really strong character compared to most single appearance crewmen.
I noticed that Lt. DeSalle, who did become a recurring face, was added in the very next episode.
The production had also just lost Grace Lee Whitney.
Is it possible that they were looking for a new familiar face in Lt. Boma?

Click to expand...

As others pointed out, his hostile attitude toward Spock meant he was not going to be a regular (see: Balance of Terror's Lt. Stiles).

Furthermore, Marshall shot the pilot for Land of the Giants in 1967 (with the series finally airing in the fall of '68), so he--like many actors shooting pilots--probably hoped LOTG would go to series, as his was a lead role--the important note about that is such a role very rare for African American males on 1960s TV up to that time, aside from Cosby on I Spy and Robert Hooks on the original N.Y.P.D. By 1968, he was well into production on LOTG and a semi-regular on Julia, so his schedule was pretty busy (aside from a few one-shot guest appearances elsewhere), even if the Boma character was considered for a role upgrade.

Furthermore, Marshall shot the pilot for Land of the Giants in 1967 (with the series finally airing in the fall of '68), so he--like many actors shooting pilots--probably hoped LOTG would go to series, as his was a lead role--the important note about that is such a role very rare for African American males on 1960s TV up to that time, aside from Cosby on I Spy and Robert Hooks on the original N.Y.P.D.

^And Clarence Williams III on The Mod Squad starting in '68. There was actually a big push to add diversity to TV casts in the late '60s due to demographic studies showing the buying power of African-American television viewers.